Israel Critics Take Center Stage

March 27, 2009

Caryl Churchill's Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza
caused much controversy last month when it ran at the Royal
Court Theater
in London. The
10-minute play evolves in seven short monologues--dating from the Holocaust to
present day Israel--where Israeli parents, grandparents and other relatives
ponder out loud what to tell (or not tell) their children about their history,
their country, and finally what they've become. Whereas, at the start, Jews are
portrayed as victims of the Nazis, by the end they've evolved into the
oppressors who righteously take pride in killing Arab children. Many inside--as well as outside--the Jewish
community were outraged at the portrayal of Israelis as bloodthirsty militants.
Jonathan Hoffman, a vice chairman of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain
and Ireland, called the play "a libelous and despicable demonisation of Israeli
parents and grandparents which will only stoke the fires of anti-Semitism."

Christopher
Hart summarizes the play in his Times Of
London review:

We all agree, I
think, that the scenes coming from Gaza
are not good. But the enormously complex reasons for such horrors are not
considered here. Instead, Churchill comes across like a very minor Old
Testament prophet, bewailing the Wickedness of my people Israel (Jeremiah
7:12). And the final lines, delivered by an Israeli in full rant, about how the
Palestinians are "animals", how he wants to see their children "covered in
blood", are simply outrageous.

But the most
troubling aspect isn't that it was staged at The Royal Court Theatre in London--something
to be expected--but the rush by certain "progressive" members of the Jewish
community in the United States to present and discuss the play, perhaps in an
effort to demonstrate how open-minded they are. Ari Roth at Theatre J in
Washington DC and The New York Theatre Workshop in New York, with the
participation of Tony Kushner, simultaneously announced public readings of the
play--even in the face of the BBC recently declining to broadcast the play on
grounds that it needed to remain impartial. "I think it would
be nearly impossible to run a drama that counters Caryl Churchill's view,"
added Jeremy Howe, Radio 4's drama commissioning editor.

Both theatres
have said that it is in their interest to present this reading so that it can
lead to further discussion. But what exactly is there to discuss? I would think
that a play that simplifies a multifaceted conflict, and strips it of any
larger context, only does the opposite. In fact, the theatre's decision to
present the play has usurped the play itself as the central object of debate.

In the case
of the New York Theatre Workshop, their decision may be an effort to compensate
for a decision three years ago not to present My Name is Rachel Corrie, another play unabashedly critical of
Israel. On each of the three nights that Seven
Jewish Children was presented, the panelists who led the follow-up
discussions--Laura Flanders (Wednesday, March 25), Kushner and Alisa Solomon
(Thursday, March 26), and Mark Crispin Miller (Friday, March 27)--are known
critics of Israel's
military actions in the territories. If NYTW were really interested in "discussion,"
as the panels are billed on its website, wouldn't they invite someone from the
Israeli consulate to participate in one of them? I'm sure Ed Koch was
available. Although, to be fair, I'm not sure anyone with an opposing view
would want their names associated with the event.

In the case
of Theatre J--known in the theatre world as the most distinguished Jewish
voice--Roth seems to be trying to demonstrate how "open" his theatre is by
presenting a work critical of Israel. But Roth should ask himself if he would
ever present a play with a similarly one-sided view against Arabs. (Perhaps he
should have presented a screening of Dutch politician Geert Wilders's film Fitna following the reading of
Churchill's play.)

The
participants and presenters of this play can hide behind their lofty principles
of freedom of expression and the need for further dialogue, but their support
of this project says more about their own relationship to Israel than anything
Churchill's play has to offer.